The Verge got to interview Valve's CEO, Gabe Newell, and the priceless quotes are just flying left and right. "We'll come out with our own and we'll sell it to consumers by ourselves. That'll be a Linux box, [and] if you want to install Windows you can. We're not going to make it hard. This is not some locked box by any stretch of the imagination." Others will be making Steambox devices too. Also: "Windows 8 was like this giant sadness. It just hurts everybody in the PC business. [...] When I started using it I was like 'oh my god...' I find [Windows 8] unusable." This last point is something I agree with vehemently. Can't comment on Windows 8 on tablets, but on regular PCs it's a schizophrenic, unusable clusterduck. It got me to switch back to Mac and use KDE (on my laptop). Let that sink in for a while.

Problem is that Modern UI is supposed to be the main UI. It's overblown only if you look at criticism from that side. Mouse and keyboard use with Modern UI is a sub-par experience in general and very annoying in too many(read - enough to remember) user facing cases.

PS: Fullscreen IE is as Modern UI as the content you're consuming - it's not(even Microsoft's own site)